best catadioptric for my budget (gulp)

[mikebee]

Due to helping my grandson with his homework rekindling my own childhood obsession of staring up into the night sky I have decided to move up from my 10x50 bins in order that we can delve further into space.Whilst waiting for it to stop raining I have spent much time trawling the internet looking at the different scopes on offer, initially concluding that something like a used meade etx90 might fit the bill, the reviews of what can be seen thro' these together with the compact nature of the beast all looked favourable however I didn't really want a "goto" scope & this feature seems to be the downside of the current etx range (unless I can find an early RA model s/h). My budget initially I hoped would give me change from £150, next I stumbled on Firstlights website & saw the skywatcher skymax 90, close to my budget but is it as good or better than the mead etx90, but to make matters worse I then saw the skymax 102 ( no substitute for diameter I presume) however this would stretch my finances but then to finally make matters worse I found the naked 127 version for the same money & started thinking should I buy this, mate it to a cheap s/h tripod that I could upgrade later & get the best view for my money. To sum up I wan't something compact, that is relatively quick & easy to set up,also ideal to take on camping trips, allow me to look at saturn's rings & to see other planets in some detail, I wan't to explore not use gps (I still use a map in the car not a satnav) I would prefer a good basic instrument that can be upgraded rather than have to keep trading up to improve if that makes sense, any advice greatly received, goodnight for now , mike b.

[ollypenrice]

The long focal length (and therefore narrow field of view) would not appeal to me on anything other than a proper astronomical mount. Camera tripods don't balance properly near the zenith and at high powers are a pain.

The small Maksutovs are good on the planets but don't have any other obvious advantages. One thing that small scopes can do well is provide lovely wide starry vistas but for this you need a shorter focal length or tunnel vision sets in. The narrow field of view also makes finding things harder. Personally, with a small aperture scope I'd prefer a shorter focal length. However, on the planets the Maks are good. But at high powers you need a proper mount.

Olly

[sparkyjon]

Have a look at the heritage 130p flex tube. Fairly compact and easy to use and will give you average views of most of the night sky.

its not really that possible to have compact and powerful viewing. Unless you buy a big catadioptric but they are still heavy and very expensive.

[NGC 1502]

Olly has it spot on, nothing to add...........

Regards, Ed.

[rowan46]

Welcome to sgl Not a lot to add I owned a 5" cat for a while and now own a wide field refractor. just thought I would pick up about the mount. A mak can be fine as a spotting scope on a terrestrial mount but it really does have a very narrow field of view and it needs a very good head to cope with a scope pointed at zenith . Photo tripods and heads are usually designed to point down and up to about 60 degrees. you can reverse them but thety tend to slip and with a scope that has a very narrow view that means a difficult time tracking and a lot of wasted time reaquiring targets. there is no reason why you couldn't use a 127 mak but a photo tripod is the biggest fly in the ointment in this combo. I used a 5" sct which is similar to a mak and could see a fair bit from a dark site but you need an astro mount. not a photo mount. A photo mount works better with a wide field scope because if there is some slippage the chances are your target is still within your field of view.

[ollypenrice]

Yes, rowan46 has given a fuller explanation of what's wrong with photo tripods. It is exactly what I've always found.

The standard advice, and it's standard for a good reason, is that 'bang for buck' the Dobsonian mounted Newtonian is the top performer.

Olly